These Three Remain

1 Corinthians 13: 1-13 page 813
If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. If I have the gift of prophecy and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have a faith that can move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing.
If I give all I posses to the poor and surrender my body to the flames, but have not love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.
Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.
It always protects, always trusts, always hopes, always perseveres.
Love never fails.
But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
For we know in part and we prophecy in part, but when perfection comes, the imperfect disappears.
When I was a child, I talked like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me.
Now we see but a poor reflection as in a mirror; then we shall see face to face. Now I know in part; then I shall know fully, even as I am fully known.
And now these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
Sermon
Weeks ago now, the nation of Haiti was devastated by an earthquake that took families and made widows and orphans, what were once homes are now rubble, and between 150,000 to 200,000 people in the capital of Port-au-Prince alone are now gone.
To some degree this news shook all of us, prompted many to give of themselves and their resources; the news coverage alone has us rubbing our eyes, waking us up to the cruel reality of life in a country not so far away.
The whole situation is unbelievable, the devastation impossible to understand, so troubling is this event that faced with it all we begin asking “why,” in the hopes that an answer will still the shaking.
Scientists offer an answer, explaining that this country lies on a fault line, a place where two plates of the earth’s crust often converge resulting in the release of stored or seismic energy.
Contractors have an answer as well, explaining that the buildings built in Haiti should never have been constructed on a fault line, as any building built in such a place must be built to some code should they hope to withstand the inevitable earthquake.
And Pat Robertson also has an answer based on the long standing tradition that Haitians, in their quest for independence from France, made a pact with the devil just before their battle for independence in January of 1804, only 28 years after our own declaration of independence. But because of their deal to ensure victory they have been cursed ever since. If you wonder why the country has been so poor, so devastated, than any hurricane, famine, earthquake, according to Rev. Robertson, can be chalked up to God’s righteous judgment.
Science’s laws, the codes of construction, Rev. Robertson’s theology, they answer the question “why,” and so tell us how this catastrophe might have either been avoided or at least prepared for. These answers give us comfort from the chaos – as according to science earthquakes are predictable in the sense that active fault lines are not random occurrences, but are measurable, foreseeable and can be prepared for through proper construction. Even Rev. Robertson gives us a means to prevent such catastrophe – simply don’t make a deal with the devil – if you do you can expect to be punished.
This question “why” is the question we often ask when faced with dismal circumstance because it can lead us to answers. This question why can lead to answers that will help us avoid the same fate in the future. When tragedy strikes we need to know why so we can avoid it striking again. When tragedy strikes our neighbors we ask why to either avoid the same fate or rest easy, trusting that we are going to be OK. In the face of divorce, infertility, unemployment, and death we want to know why for in knowing a reason we avoid the feeling that the world is chaos and tragedy strikes without provocation or cause.
Interesting though, “why” is not a question that our scripture lesson for today answers – in fact, Paul, in his letter to the church in Corinth doesn’t explain suffering at all, simply acknowledges its reality, though seismologists today tell us that Corinth, like Haiti, was often ravaged by earthquakes, by virtue of the Anatolian Fault.
Paul, rather than answer our question of “why,” simply assumes that suffering is a reality as all things eventually come to an end – “as for prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.” You see – the answer to the question “why” seems hardly worth pursuing for Paul who assumes that at some point we will all find the ground beneath us shaking, as we all stand on a fault line of our own.
The issue which Paul deals with is not “why” this happens – but what we have left when it does – after all, why is our question. The question of the victim is always – what now.
A few years ago I had the pleasure of sharing thanksgiving dinner with a bartender. A cousin of my wife Sara had brought this bartender as a date to the family’s thanksgiving celebration.
Awkward as it was, I a preacher, and this bartender a bartender, the bartender said to me to break the ice, “well, they couldn’t have put two more opposite professions beside each other.”
I thought for a minute and came to some bizarre realization, “I imagine that people come to the two of us looking for exactly the same thing.”
So often we hear stories of two siblings or friends with the same childhood – to come to grips, one turns to alcohol, the other to religion – not necessarily looking for answers, but each hoping to find some solace, some assurance that despite the chaos or heartbreak or devastation of their past, there is still a chance for a future, or at least a means to dull the pain.
Paul does not tell us why the earth quakes.
Paul does not explain why some marriages that begin with love end in divorce.
Paul does not offer us understanding, he does not tell us why.
Instead, Paul assures us that when the mountains shake, when prophecies cease, when tongues are stilled, and when knowledge passes away, what we have left is the only thing that ever mattered.
And now these three remain, he says, faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
While you can’t build houses with these three, and I assume that many Haitians would gladly trade faith, hope, and love for food, water, and shelter, I guarantee there is no one in Haiti now rejoicing to uncover their wisdom from the rubble, that there is no one in Haiti now wailing over the loss of their privilege. What we mourn is losing the ones we love, and what we rejoice in is the gift of holding their hand for another day.
Only in the wake of tragedy is this truth often lived out though, but I charge you to remember that the opportunity to invest in the only thing that truly matters, the only thing that will last, has been there all along.
Now we see but a poor reflection of who we are and who we are capable of being, as though we only knew ourselves by our reflection in a mirror made of silver, dull and shadowed – but there will come a day when we shall see face to face, not only who we are, but who we were created to be.
You were not created to accumulate riches.
You were not created to lift yourself up above your peers.
And you were not created to judge yourself or your neighbors.
You were created to testify to the truth, that the God who created you out of love has given you the gift to love and to receive that same love in return.
For when all else falls away, these three remain: faith, hope, and love. But the greatest of these is love.
-Amen.